Red zone defense fuels Southeast Missouri State football team in win over Murray State

The up-tempo Murray State football team marched its way down the field on its first drive of Saturday night's game against Southeast Missouri State.

A pass from quarterback KD Humphries moved the Racers to the 1-yard line before the Redhawks halted run attempts on the next two plays to set up fourth down.

Humphries completed a pass on the goal line to Drew Rutland, who fumbled into the end zone for a touchback 4 minutes, 11 seconds into the game.

It was one of three red zone stops for Southeast, which opened its Ohio Valley Conference slate with a 27-10 victory over the Racers at Houck Stadium.

The fast-paced Racers offense was a drastic change from the triple-option the Redhawks faced the week before in a loss to Division II Shorter.

"It was red zone. That was by far the difference in the game," Southeast coach Tom Matukewicz said. "The first series it looked like we were looking for the triple option. *... That was just a terrible -- it's just hard going from that to that, but we got a takeaway in the end zone. When you do that, you win games."

Halting the Racers, who compiled 535 yards of offense in the game, on the first drive set the tone for the Southeast defense.

"The main thing about it is you've got to put one play behind you," junior safety Eriq Moore said of facing the hurry-up offense. "One play comes up, you play play and you've got to put it behind you, hurry up, look at the sideline and get the play call and hurry up and get in the position to make the play. I thought we did a great job with that. I thought they got a couple wrinkles when they were coming down and moving the ball in chunks a little bit, but I felt like those last four plays when we made a stop on fourth down, that's amazing. That comes back down to those guys in the trenches. *... I thought those front seven really set the tone from that point on."

"I definitely think that set the tone for the game and another thing that really got us going was the excitement in the stadium," Moore added. "I felt like Houck -- there was like an eruption when that happened. The fans got into it, our coaches got into it, our players on the sideline. I mean, everybody erupted and that did set the tone for the game. It was a nice play."

The Racers scored on their third drive of the game on a 7-yard run by running back Roman Clay with 1:59 left in the first quarter to go up 7-0.

Southeast Missouri State quarterback Dante Vandeven carries away from Murray State's Bishop Woods during the second quarter Saturday at Houck Stadium. Southeast won 27-10. (Fred Lynch)

Southeast cut the deficit to 7-3 with a 25-yard field goal by Ryan McCrum with 12:31 left in the half.

MSU's Humphries punted on the next drive to set the Redhawks up at their own 1. They needed 12 plays to go 99 yards and scored on a 24-yard pass to senior receiver Paul McRoberts to take a 10-7 lead into halftime.

The Redhawks never trailed again and pushed the lead to 17-7 on a 3-yard run by junior running back Tremane McCullough on their first drive of the second half.

The Racers were held to just one field goal in the final 30 minutes of the game -- a 21-yarder by Connor Mitchell with 5:10 left in the third that cut it to 17-10.

Mitchell attempted a 27-yard field goal on the Racers' next drive following a Southeast three-and-out but missed wide right with 1:57 left in the third.

MSU, which entered the game with the best third-down conversion rate of any OVC team, converted just 3 of 15 third-down attempts and were 1 of 4 on fourth-down.

The Racers trailed 24-10 entering the fourth quarter and were stopped on the Southeast 30 on fourth down on the opening drive of the quarter with an incomplete pass.

They moved to the Redhawks' 4 on their next drive with help from a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after what would've been a third-down stop but resulted in a first down. On fourth-and-goal following a Southeast timeout, linebacker Chad Meredith hit receiver Jeremy Harness for a loss of 10 yards that all but sealed the victory with 5:17 remaining.

The Redhawks celebrate their 27-10 victory over Murray State Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015 at Houck Stadium. (Fred Lynch)

"The play call was perfect. It was a blitz straight up the middle and as soon as I saw the formation they were in I knew what we were doing was going to stop it immediately," Meredith said.

"The whole defense stepped up and did what we had to do."

"I came straight through and I saw it was going to be a reverse, so I tried to kind of throw my body at them any way I could and it just worked out for the best," Meredith added.

McRoberts had pushed Southeast's lead to 24-10 with 24 seconds left in the third after the Redhawks went 80 yards on five plays on the drive after Mitchell's missed FG. Vandeven connected with McRoberts for passes of 19, 44 and an 8-yard touchdown pass.

McCrum made a 30-yard field goal with 2:35 left for the final score.

"Just opportunity after opportunity," said McRoberts, who had eight catches for 169 yards. "The coaches said they were going to air the ball out a little bit, and they did it, and Dante got it done. It was our job to connect and execute every play."

The Redhawks (2-3, 1-0 OVC) visit Eastern Illinois next Saturday in Charleston, Illinois. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.